Shiv Devotee - Markandeya and God of Death

Mrikandu was a great rishi. Marudvati was his wife. For a long time they had no children.

The rishi prayed to lord Siva. Lord Siva appeared to him, and said, "I am pleased with you, Mrikandu. Tell me, do you want a hundred sons, who will live for a long time, but will all be foolish?

Or, do you want one very intelligent son, who will live for only sixteen years?"

The rishi at once said, "Lord, give me that one intelligent son."
Lord Siva said, "Good! You shall have him."


Soon the rishi got a son. He named him Markandeya. The boy grew to be very intelligent and handsome. The rishi invested him with the sacred thread. Markandeya learnt the Vedas and Sastras, easily. Everyone liked him.

As the boy was getting on to be sixteen, Rishi Mrikandu became sadder and sadder. One day Markandeya asked his father: "Father, why do you look so sad?"

The rishi said, "Son! What shall I say? When Lord Siva gave you to me, he said you would live only sixteen years. You are now about to reach that age. How can Iand your mother bear to lose you as we will at the end of this year?"

Markandeya said, "Father! Is that the reason? Lord Siva is very kind to His devo- tees. You yourself told me that. He has saved many from death before. I have read about it in the Puranas. I shall therefore worship Lord Siva day and night from today. I am sure, He will save -me too! "

RishiMrikandu was very happy to hear his son say this. He blessed his son.
Markandeya built a Siva-Linga at a spot on the sea-shore. He started worshipping Lord Siva morning, noon and night. He sang bhajans, and often danced in joy.

On the last day, Markandeya was about to sing bhajans, when Yama, the Lord of Death, came to him. Yama rode on a buffalo. He held a noose in his hand. He spoke to Markandeya, "Stop your bhajan! You boy! Your life in this world is over. Be ready to die."

Markandeya was not afraid. He clung to the Siva-Linga as one clings to one's mother.

Yama threw his noose round the boy's neck, and pulled him along with the Siva- Linga.

Then the Siva-Linga burst open and Lord Siva came out of it, Lord kicked Yama in the chest, and said, "Yama, begone! Don't touch this boy. He is my beloved devotee. He will live forever!"

Yama went away crest-fallen. Markandeya then prayed to Lord Siva more fervently than ever. This prayer says at the end of each line, "What can Death do to me?" Many people recite this prayer even now.

Markandeya came home, and fell at the feet of his parents. They embraced him, and wept with joy. Markandeya became a great rishi, and lived very long.

Lord Ganesha and Kubera

Kubera, the god of wealth, was very proud of his boundless fortune. One day, he organized a gorgeous dinner. Kubera invited Lord Shiva and Parvati to dinner wishing to show off his riches. But, the couple denied Kubera's request and said that he could feed Ganesha instead. Kubera laughed and said 'I can feed thousands of children like this."

Ganesha went to his palace and sat down to eat. He started eating all the food placed in front of him. As was the custom, more and more food was served to him as he did not say that he had enough. Soon there was no more food in the palace and so Kubera ordered his troops to get more food from the surrounding villages. But Ganesha continued eating and there was no more food to be found. Still very hungry, and not satisfied with all the available food, Ganesh started to devour plates and dishes, the furniture and all the content of Alakapuri, the main city of Kubera.

When he achieved to gulp down the whole, the child Ganesh threatened to swallow Kubera himself. Frightened, the god of wealth rushed forward to Shiva's feet to implore his help, since the Ganesh voracious appetite seemed to be unlimited.

Kubera became very frightened. Ganesha told him, " You promised my parents you will feed me. Now, I have to eat you up as I am still very hungry ". Kubera ran away and pleaded with Shiva to save him from Ganesha. Shiva asked Kubera to give up his pride and serve Ganesha a handful of rice. Kubera went back to his palace. By this time, Ganesha's stomach had become very huge but the child was still hungry. When Kubera served a cup of rice with humility, Ganesha's hunger was satisfied.

The story of Ganesh and the cat

Ganesh is the son of the Mother Goddess, Parvati. Like all children, he was sent to school to become clever.

On the first day, he learnt the first three letters of the alphabet: A, B, C. He was very excited when he came home. He ran to his mother saying, ‘Mum, mum, play with me.’ But mum was busy. She asked him to play by himself in the garden. Ganesh went into the garden, and there he saw the neighbour’s cat. Ganesh said, ‘Cat, play with me. We are going to play the game of School. I am going to be the teacher, and you will be my student. I will teach you the alphabet.’


In wobbly writing he wrote on the board ‘A B C’. Then he pointed at ‘A’ and said to the cat, ‘Repeat after me, A…’ The cat just went ‘Meow’. Ganesh said, ‘Cat, that is not very clever. Repeat after me, ‘A, B...’. The cat went ‘Meow, meow….’ Ganesh was getting annoyed with the cat. He said, ‘Cat! You must learn the alphabet properly, otherwise I will be angry with you!’ He then pointed at the letters on the board and said, ‘Repeat after me, A B C…’. The cat went ‘Meow, meow, meow.’ Ganesh felt very annoyed and told the cat off, waving his finger at it. The cat did not like being told off, and ran away feeling sad. Ganesh decided to go back into his house. When he returned, he was surprised to see mum looking very sad. Ganesh asked, ‘Mum, why do you look so sad?’ Parvati said, ‘Come here my boy, and tell me, what were you doing just now?’ Ganesh said, ‘I was just playing in the garden with the cat.’ Mum asked, ‘Were you angry with the cat?’ Ganesh thought oh oh! He replied, ‘Just a little.’

The Mother Goddess said, ‘Listen to me my boy, and listen carefully. This is the most important lesson you will learn in your life. I, the Mother Goddess, am the mother of the whole universe, and live in everything. It is me who lives in the cat, so when you are angry with anyone, you are angry with me my boy. Do you now understand why I feel sad?’ Ganesh now understood. It is God alone who lives in all living things, so if we hurt or harm anything, we hurt God. From that day on, Ganesh would never hurt any living thing.

Just like Ganesh, Hindus must not hurt or harm anyone or anything. God lives in everything and in everyone. That is why Hindus greet each other by putting their hands together, giving a gentle bow and saying, ‘Namaste,’ which means ‘There is God in you’.

Believe It Or Not!

Believe It Or Not!

• A cockroach will live nine days without its head, before it starves to death.
• A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
• A pig's orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.
• A snail can sleep for three years.
• All Polar bears are left-handed.
• American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first-class.
• Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.
• An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
• Babies are born without knee caps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.
• Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.
• Butterflies taste with their feet.
• Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, dogs only have about ten.
• Cat's urine glows under a black light.
• China has more English speakers than the United States.
• Donald Duck comics were banned in Finland because he doesn't wear pants.
• Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
• Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.
• Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.
• February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
• Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.
• I am. is the shortest complete sentence in the English language
• If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall and have a neck twice the length of a normal human's neck.
• If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.
• If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.
• If you keep a goldfish in a dark room, it will eventually turn white.
• If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
• In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.
• In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
• It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
• Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.
• Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
• More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes.
• No word in the English language rhymes with month.
• Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
• On average, people fear spiders more than they do death.
• One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today is because cotton growers in the '30s lobbied against hemp farmers, they saw it as competition.
• Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
• Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
• Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.
• Shakespeare invented the word "assassination" and "bump."
• Some lions mate over 50 times a day.
• Starfish haven't got brains.
• Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand.
• The ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.
• The average human eats eight spiders in their lifetime at night.
• The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.
• The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth 2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
• The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
• The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.
• The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off.
• The most common name in the world is Mohammed.
• The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with.
• The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan."
• The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s, the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites.
• The sentence, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter in the English language.
• The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar and England in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered after 38 minutes.
• The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
• The word "lethologica" describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.
• The word racecar and kayak are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left.
• There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.
• TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters on only one row of the keyboard.
• Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
• You are more likely to be killed by a Champagne cork than by a poisonous spider.
• You can't kill yourself by holding your breath.
• You share your birthday with at least nine million other people in the world.